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Make Your Wedding Your Own Vol. 1: An Introduction

Several of you have come to me recently asking for song suggestions for certain wedding reception special events and dances such as your Mother/Son Dance, Bouquet Toss, Cutting of the Cake, etc. Though it’s easy enough for me to just hand over a list of our most commonly-requested songs for each of these traditional events and dances (our computer system actually logs this!), I know that many of you aren’t necessarily looking for the”most popular” tracks but instead the ones that are right for you, your fiancé, your family, and your guests.

So — let’s talk about your style for a minute; ask yourself a few quick questions about the specific wedding reception event: what are you looking to achieve? How do you want your guests and your family, as well as those specific players in the moment to feel before, during, and after the event? This may be a smaller part of a bigger question, too — what kind of atmosphere do you envision for your reception, overall? Are you looking to create an elegant ball? A crazy energetic nightclub? A laid-back bar-be-que? A luau?

As you probably already know, Something New Brides and Grooms meet with their DJ/MC at least twice for planning — first to brainstorm during a two month planning meeting and then to finalize selections at a two week planning meeting. Those times aren’t hard-and-fast, of course — we’re happy to adjust for your schedule — and you’re also very welcome to call in any time if you need additional help!

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Many of the special wedding reception events that your disc jockey will talk to you about are some of the points of highest emotion during your day, and music can have a very significant effect on those emotions (Hollywood film-score-writers have been using it to influence us for more than sixty years, now. Just watch the scariest horror movie you know of sometime with the sound off, and you’ll see what I mean. Not so scary, anymore!). Depending on your preferences, these joyful and bittersweet emotional events may be tempered or intensified through the use of music, but it’s important to note that different music means different things to different people. That’s why your planning meetings with your actual DJ become so, so important.

Now, I’m certainly not knocking “Butterfly Kisses” or “I Loved Her First,” but what if these “standards” just don’t fit the bride’s relationship with her father? The same is true with the cutting of the cake, grand entrance, etc. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting some of our — not necessarily most popular requests — but perhaps some of our most moving and interesting requests. Songs that might just fit your special needs or at least get you thinking, so stay tuned!